


A better tomorrow

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Developing Relationship, Drinking to Cope, Heart-to-Heart, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loneliness, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26137324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Charlton prays for better tomorrows but seems to stay trapped in painful yesterdays
Relationships: Charlton/Eliot Waugh
Kudos: 6





	A better tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING. I have never watched the Magicians. I know a lot about it. I've watched clips on Youtube and stalk the tag on Tumblr, but down under, I don't have access to the show. But I've been obsessed with it! And I know a lot, but still very little? (Big thanks to @unlifeira on Tumblr for slowly trying to help me get more understanding!) But I know how it ended and a good amount of the show and am slowly learning more!! But I know how badly it ended for some characters, and I kind of wanted to put my own spin on a hopeful happy ever after. It was inspired by "I'm sorry I'm not Quinton" and then I just couldn't stop. I don't know much about Charlton, but I tried to make him innocent and more of a Fillorian resident than an expert of Earth and human customs, and I didn't make them get all mushy and kissy, just because I don't know much about him! But I like him from the little I've seen so far, and though we all would rather Eliot be with Quinton, I like him and Charlton together. This is probably going to be very shitty to those of you in the fandom, and out of character and wrong in so many ways, but I'm actually really proud of this and how it turned out!!

Charlton had begun to get used to the cycle by now

Early in the morning, Eliot would wake and roll over in their shared bed to place a kiss to Charlton’s crown before getting ready for work, and Charlton would wake just enough to watch him through the window as he made his way towards Brakebills, walking down the cobblestone path of their secluded cottage with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Charlton would find ways to occupy himself while he was home alone, making new dishes in the kitchen or tidying up their home or reading a new book from the library that Eliot had thought he would enjoy. Eliot would return, tired and sad yet smiling as Charlton paused whatever he was doing to stride across the cottage and place a kiss on Eliot’s cheek, taking his jacket and hanging it up on the coat rack. Eliot would grade papers and plan lessons and reminisce in his study, and later join Charlton on the couch where they would watch bad TV and catch Charlton up on the best of earth media and they would snuggle together on the small two-seater until the night became late and they both retired to their bed.

Eliot would partake in a few glasses of wine during the week. On the weekends, he would make brightly coloured and intricate cocktails with a proficiency that Charlton was awed by, and he would often find himself sitting nearby just _watching_ as Eliot’s hands worked, spinning, shaking, adding, dashing, pouring. It was mesmerising to behold, a different kind of magic as the finished result would not be the flowing of the arcane, a trail of enchanting beauty, but an almost neon-coloured cocktail in a stout glass, looking startling akin to the drain cleaner he had found under the kitchen skin, and had been immediately told to use only for unclogging drains.

There was a shared trauma between the two. They had been forced to grow up far too young. Both of them had been taken, used and abused and ruined by the Monster, their bodies paraded around like nothing but a meat suit for a psychopathic being intent on ending the world. Both of them had lost their place, not knowing where they fit in, not knowing who they were, not knowing how much had changed while they were gone.

It was no question that Elitot was broken long before they met, long before the Monster laid its hands on him. Charlton knew some of it, after being locked away in Eliot’s mind for so long. He had done a little digging in his spare time. Not enough to really pry, but enough to understand, somewhat, the man he was falling in love with, and choosing to love him anyway, despite the flaws and broken pieces that he had found.

Breakbills had given them a home. Nothing fancy, nothing outrageous. A small, modest cottage close enough to the school to see it from their window, but far enough away that the rambunctious teens going about their days with all the light of someone discovering magic was real for the first time. They had lived in the Physical Kids Cottage for a time and had shared Eliot’s admittedly larger than average room during their stay, but it had become painfully obvious that they did not belong three. Eliot had grown too much, been through so much in such a short amount of time that he no longer felt like a frat house full of young, bright-eyed, optimist teens was where he wanted to spend the rest of his days. They were too immature, too innocent, too optimistic. Eliot was none of that, anymore, and he could no longer see himself as the fun-loving kid he used to be, before all the deaths, and the ruling and the quests and the possession and the pain.

They had given them the cottage as a sort of thank you for all that Eliot had sacrificed. It was secluded and isolated, but it was perfect for the two of them. Charlton, still getting used to earth and its customs, and Eliot, no longer belonging anywhere. 

Nobody visited them. Not that anyone would. They didn’t make it a point to invite anyone over, and they didn’t have many friends. Penny and Julia, sure, but they were busy with their mission and the new baby. They came by sometimes while Eliot was working, and Julia would bring her little boy, bundled in many adorable blankets. She would let Charlton hold him, sometimes, on the rare occasion that he was feeling brave enough, and he always felt like he was holding the whole of the world in his hands. 

Eliot used to have friends. Maybe Charlton did too, but that was many years ago, long before the Monster. Margo. And Quinton. And Fen. And others, but Charlton didn’t know them. They were all gone, now, and Eliot was left behind.

So he didn’t comment when Eliot would pour a couple of extra glasses of wine at the end of the night, or when he would make himself a few more neon coloured drinks on the weekends. He knew what it was like to be alone with nothing but your thoughts. He would let Eliot drink until he was feeling warm and fuzzy and loose-limbed enough to let Charlton lead him to bed, and he would let him tuck him under the covers and place a kiss on his forehead, and he would fall asleep with Charlton beside him and his hand in his hair, and Charlton would tell himself that they would both be better tomorrow. They would never be better tomorrow.

He knew about Quinton. Of course, he knew about Quinton. You don’t spend that long in somebody's mind without knowing the love of their life. Eliot may have been quieter about his emotions, but he felt them with the strength of a hurricane, and Charlton had gotten lost within the feeling while he and Eliot shared a consciousness. He knew that Eliot would always love Quinton, even more so than he could ever love Charlton. But he was alright with that. He had never been loved before, had never known love. He was enjoying it while he had it and didn’t mind that Eliot would always love a dead man more than him. He really didn’t. He didn’t dislike that Eliot loved a dead man more than the man he lived with. What he had with Quinton… it was nothing that Charlton had ever seen before, and something he probably never see again.

But enough was enough. Not like in a grand, literal sense, but in the sense that Charlton was tired going through the motions of watching Eliot hurt and ache and surfer without any understandable rhyme or reason that he could make out, and he was sick of sitting on the sidelines while the man he loved hurt so deeply that Charlton could never hope to reach it. He was sick of waiting and not knowing and just hoping that everything got better tomorrow.

But there never was a better tomorrow. 

After Eliot had finished a few hours worth of work in his study and had seated himself comfortably on the couch with his customary glass of wine, the bottle not far out of reach, Charlton slunk from the kitchen while the cake baked slowly in the oven to perch himself on the seat beside him, small and silent. “Hi,” he tried to make it sound casual, but he wasn’t sure if it came out the way he wanted it to.

Regardless of how it sounded, Eliot turned to him with that slow smile. Not the one that made his eyes light up and his pale cheeks flush red as he threw his hair back hard enough to dislodge some of the hair tucked behind his ears, but one that made the corners of his mouth crinkle and a soft laugh rumble up in his throat as he tilted his head slightly and looked at Charlton with a soft gaze filled with love. “Hi,” he replied, just as quietly.

“I uh,” Charlton cleared his throat as he shuffled to get more comfortable on the couch. It wasn’t a bad couch, but it was small, and Eliot had very long legs. “I noticed that you have been a little… distant, lately. Has it been a long week?”

He didn’t frown, but Eliot’s brow furrowed slightly as he thought, but his perfectly practised smile stayed fixed in place. “I mean, I’ve had to do a lot of marking, and there was a little mishap with one of my more rambunctious students, but other than that, it’s been an average sort of week. Why? What have you noticed?”

“Well,” Charlton said carefully, trying to find the right words. He wasn’t worried about whatever Eliot’s reaction would be, but after living in his head for so long, he knew better than anyone that you had to be tactful with these sorts of things. Eliot didn’t like to talk about how he was feeling, and if you asked about it, he was more likely to lie about it than to give you an honest answer. “This week, you finished three bottles of wine in three days.”

“Oh,” Eliot did frown now, the edges of his lips curving downwards as he peered down at his glass before he narrowed his eyes at it and put it aside, placing it gently like a glass sculpture beside the wine bottle on the coffee table. “I hadn’t noticed. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Charlton said quickly. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. I just… I suppose I’m just trying to ask if you’re alright.”

Pursing his lips, Eliot sank into the couch until he could rest his head on the back of it. “I’m as alright as I can be, I suppose. We’ve been given this very nice house. I’m working at the school. I’ve got you,” he reached over and elbowed him in the side lightly, making him rock back and forth with the motion. “Everything’s going great for us. But…”

“But?” Charlton pushed when it became clear that Eliot wasn’t going to continue on his own,

“But I miss them, Charlton,” Eliot’s sigh held the weight of the world. “I miss Alice. I miss Kady. I miss Josh. I miss Fen. I miss Julia. I miss Penny. I miss Quinton,” he paused. “I miss _Margo_.”

“Penny and Julia are just at the school,” Charlton said, confused. “Julia has actually dropped by a couple of times. I’m sure you’ve seen Penny in the teacher’s lounge at some point.”

But Eliot shook his head. “It’s not the same. Nothing is the same, anymore. They have a kid, now. They no longer go on reckless adventures to Fillory and back. They’re… sensible, now. They have moral obligations to the students. They’re not the same people I used to know, and I _miss_ them.”

Charlton didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. 

They sat there in silence for a few moments too long, where Eliot started tortured up at the ceiling and Charlton could feel his courage slip as he sunk deeper into the cushions and somehow made himself even smaller. He didn’t know what he should say. Maybe he had spent time in Eliot’s head and knew what made him tick, but he didn’t know what to say in moments like this. He had been severely lacking any human interaction since he met Eliot, and he was… rusty.

“I hope Margo’s OK,” Eliot said into the silence, his eyes shut tight. “I really… I really hope so. I miss her more than I could have ever thought possible. Even separated by Fillory, I wasn’t too worried, because it’s _us_ , right? We were… fantastic super-bitches, and nothing could ever separate us for too long. We would always find a way back to each other. But now… I don’t even know if she’s _alive_ , Charlton. I don’t know if she’s hurt, or if she’s happy, or if she’s found a new friend to help her move on and completely forget about me.”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Charlton tried. “You and her… you were like family.”

“I thought so too,” Eliot said. “But she’s gone, and I’m probably never going to see her again.”

Charlton licked his lips as he slid closer to Eliot, building up the courage to place a hand on his thigh. Eliot tilted his head off the back of the couch to look down at him, a small smile crawling across his face. “You have… you have lost so much. You have lost so many people. You probably never expected Margo to be one of them.”

Slowly, Eliot lifted his hand to put it over Charlton’s, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Never. Everybody else, sure. Josh might hang around because he and Margo had that thing going on, and maybe Alice because where else was she going to go? But I thought Quinton would stay in Fillory, or maybe he would come here and teach. Penny would go off somewhere, travel the world, find some bigoted assholes who need their ass kicked. I wasn’t sure about Julia, but I knew she wouldn’t stay. Kady would go hang out with the Hedges. Fen would make Fillory a better place. But Margo? I always thought we would be together. I never expected to live very long, and you know that, but when I tried to put time aside to plan my future, Margo was always there. _Always_. I never for a moment considered the fact that it could possibly be any different. And now that she really is gone…”

“Now you don’t know what you’re going to do with yourself,” Charlton finished, threading his fingers with Eliot’s, his long, thin fingers, designed for casting intricate spells and smoking cigarettes, stained a slight yellow and calloused, cold to the touch, like death had held him and hadn’t let go. They were a pianist's fingers, he decided, and couldn’t remember if he had seen any memory of Eliot playing the piano while he was stuck in his head. Maybe he could suggest it as a new extra-curricular activity.

Eliot looked down at his hand, intertwined with Charlton’s, and couldn’t help but smile despite the circumstances. He ran his thumb over the back of his hand. “I feel lost,” he admitted. “Without her… I don’t know. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“I know it’s terrible,” Chalton said. “But at least she isn’t dead. Fillory is no more. I, for one, am glad that she made it out of there alive.”

“Where is she though, Charlton?” Eliot asked. “She could be stuck somewhere, trying to find a way back. What if she’s scared? What if she’s trying to come home? Or what if she’s never coming back? I don’t know. Maybe it’d be better off if she had died in Fillory. At least then there wouldn’t be so many unanswered questions. My imagination gets the better of me sometimes, and I keep finding myself thinking about all the horrible situations she could be in, and there’s nothing I could do.”

When Eliot finished, Charlton just watched him for a moment. This was only something he had seen in Eliot’s head while he was digging through rooms, and knew from other peoples past experience to tread lightly. “You’re angry. At her,” he said. Eliot looked away, ashamed. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Eliot’s voice sounded thick. “Maybe it’s because I’m sick of losing people I love and not getting a chance to say goodbye.”

“Like with Quinton,” It wasn’t a question. Days later, a new door had appeared, and Charlton had walked through it to watch the moment Eliot, supported on one side by Margo and the other by a long cane, walked through the darkness towards the bonfire as the rest of his friends sang a final farewell to their dearly departed Quinton, and how Eliot had wanted to throw himself into the flames before settling simply on the peach in his pocket. 

Eliot’s grip on Charlton’s hand tightened involuntarily. “Like Quinton,” he managed.

“Were you mad at Quinton too?” Charlton asked.

“No. I don’t think so. Not like this, at least,” Eliot shook his head so firmly that his hair fell from where it was tucked behind his ears to fall around his face until his expression was hidden from Charlton’s curious gaze. “I was upset that he died. Devastated. But… I was mad that he had died trying to save me. I was mad that he had to be the self-sacrificing idiot. I was mad that I never got to say goodbye, or tell him how much I loved him and how I was an idiot for ever telling him differently. But I wasn’t mad at him. I could never really be mad at him.”

“Why is it so different from Margo?” Charlton asked, genuinely curious.

“Quinton died,” Eliot said. “Margo… she left. She’s gone.”

“If I remember correctly, she didn’t exactly have a choice,” Charlton said. “The World Seed… it took her. It took her and… and Fen, and Alice, and Josh. I’m sure that if she had been given the opportunity, she would have at least stayed back long enough to say goodbye.”

The logic was sound in Charlton's opinion. But Eliot made a soft sound from deep in his throat, and Charlon struggled to understand. “No. That’s… it’s different. She’s still gone. It might not have been her choice, but the fact of the matter is that she still isn’t here. She’s somewhere else. And I know Penny and Julia still hold out hope and that they’ll never stop searching for them, but… I have this feeling that I’m never going to see her again,” he waved vaguely, still looking down at his shoes. “Neither of them had much of a choice in their fate. Margo was taken by the World Seed to rebuild a new Fillory, and Quinton was stolen by fate to save my miserable life. It doesn’t matter how it happened, it doesn’t matter if they wanted it, it doesn’t matter how much choice they had. They’re both still gone, and I still never got to say goodbye.”

“Ah,” Charlton said, realizing that the issue wasn’t how they left him, but that he never thought it was possible that they would leave him and not say goodbye. “I… yes. I understand now how that could be painful.”

“It just feels like my incredibly small world is falling apart,” Eliot said. “And they've all taken pieces with them. Kady, Alice, Margo. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put the pieces back together again.”

“You don’t know how you’re going to live without them,” Charlton said quietly. “And you don’t know what you’re going to do to fix it.”

“Yeah,” Eliot sighed, sounding resigned and heartbroken and pained right down to his very soul.

There were many things that Charlton knew, and a great many things he didn’t know, but right now, sitting beside this man he knew so intimately and completely on their tiny couch in the living room of their home, he somehow found himself at an utter loss for words. “It seems that you have given so much to Fillory, and all it has done for you in return is take and take until you have nothing left to give.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Eliot’s foot tapping loudly on the rug, his hand clenching Charlton’s so tightly he feared it was going to snap. Outside, an owl hooted in one of the large trees, and smaller birds answered its call in tiny chirps. Charlton could do nothing but watch him as Eliot’s face swiftly went through every emotion it could think of it such a small amount of time. “I fucking hate Fillory,” he eventually said, and the expression his face had settled on was one of grief and anger, mouth twisted angrily, his eyes haunted but glowing with a raging flame, jaw clenched tight, but still looking like he could keel over and sob at the drop of a hat. “I wish we never went on those stupid quests to save the damn thing. I wish I was never made High King, and I wish I never cared so fucking much for it. Nothing good ever came from that place. My life would have been better off if I had stayed at the school and let the others get themselves killed. I never should have tried to be the hero. I’m glad that it’s destroyed. Fuck Fillory.”

It had been a long time since Eliot had been so passionate about anything, and Charlton found himself smiling at the way his shoulders dropped and a breathy laugh escaped his chest at the unexpected release of tension, as one of the things that weighed heavy on his heart was finally expelled from his body. But still, Charlton felt something gnawing at him, a tiny thought that he couldn’t shake, a worry that was unnecessary but still so violently prominent. “But if you had never visited Fillory, you and I never would have met.”

This time, Eliot did turn to look at him, and though there was still something so angry and broken in his face, his eyes lit up with that smile Charlton adored, filled with light and love and heartfelt compassion, “That’s very true,” he said as he brought Charlton’s hand up to his lips, still entwined with his own, and placed a kiss against the skin. “I guess Fillory did have its moments.”

Neither of them mentioned that Eliot and Charlton only met because his body was being paraded around like a decorative float by one of the greatest and darkest beings in the history of Fillory. There were many things they didn’t mention, these days, and the horror of that time was one of them. And the following trauma after.

Pursing his lips, Charlton reached out and brushed Eliot’s hair away, tucking it carefully and securely back behind his ear. He rested his palm on the side of his face, and Eliot leaned into the touch, humming despite himself. “I wish that there was some way that I could help.”

“You are helping,” Eliot said. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all. I… I just miss my Bambi.”

They sat there in comfortable, compatible silence, just the two of them against the world, the weight of all their sins bearing down on them. But with their hands tangled together, Eliot couldn’t reach for the wine glass on the coffee table without pulling away, and Charlton couldn’t get up and stress bake to get his mind off of things. They were to be forever stuck like this, trapped in an endless cycle of pain and doubt and confusion until it killed them.

It was rare they got peaceful moments like this. Nothing to do, nothing to say. Just the two of them, so close they could feel each other's warmth, so close that Eliot’s breath ghosted across his skin. So close that he resisted the urge to run his hand through Eliot’s long, dishevelled hair. Charlton had never considered the possibility of domestically before. It had never crossed his mind, trapped in his own body by the Monster and locked away in the impenetrable fortress. Until Eliot. Eliot was the start of it all, and he hoped with all his being that Eliot would be there at the end of it too.

But despite Charlton trying to put him back together with glue and tape, Eliot was still… well. He was still broken into too many pieces, like a mirror shattered into tiny, unfixable shards. Charlton knew that while he could collect the pieces, shift them around and piece them together like unfinished bits of a puzzle, he could never really make him whole again, could never really fix him enough to make him happy.

If magic came from pain, then Eliot was one of the best magicians of this century.

And Charlton loved him. He used to be afraid to say those words, just because it was still so new, so raw, but Charlton loved Eliot in a way he had never loved anything before, and he would die a million times over before he let anything happen to him, anything that he can prevent. 

But Eliot had lost so much. Charlton couldn’t remember those before, the ones he loved and cared about, and though they had been long gone, he couldn’t fathom what Eliot was enduring. Charlton wished he could save him from himself, that he could hold him tightly and keep those jagged, fractured pieces together with his determination and his strength. But he couldn’t. There was very little he could do. All he could do was sit there and watch as Eliot tore himself apart from the inside. 

Maybe if Quinton were here instead of Charlton, everything would be different. Maybe he’d have some way to make him smile, to make his life worth living again. Eliot had told him his discipline was the repair of small objects. Maybe Quinton would have been able to fix those shattered parts of Eliot’s soul, piece together the fractured lines and made him whole again. But Quinton wasn’t here, and all Eliot had was Charlton.

“I’m sorry I’m not Quinton,” he said before he could think about it, knowing in his heart of hearts that this was the real atrocity here.

He had never seen that look on Eliot’s face. Pure, wide-eyed horror as he looked up so fast his hair swung around his face, his mouth agape, reaching for Charlton so fast, so desperately, that he almost didn’t know what to do. “No, _no_ , never apologise for that. _Never_. You have nothing- _no_ , Charlton.”

“I know that if he were here in my place things would be better,” Charlton continued, feeling truth with every syllable. “You would feel less lonely, less hopeless, less like the world was falling apart around you with no way to fix it. I’m sorry that it’s me you’re stuck with and not Quinton.”

“I’m not _stuck_ with you, you absolute fool,” Eliot forced a laugh, running his hands over every inch of Charlton’s torso as if afraid he would disappear before his very eyes, and Charlton could do nothing more but sit there under the barrage of strange contact. “I _want_ to be here with you. I _choose_ to be here. I’m not stuck anywhere. If I didn’t want to be here, I would have been long gone by now, and we both would have gone our separate ways months ago.”

Charlton watched as Eliot’s hands stilled, resting one on his thigh and the other on his shoulder, looking at Charlton with something so gentle, so kind, so genuine that it nearly brought tears to his eyes. “I just know that he would make you happy.”

“ _You_ make me happy,” Eliot insisted. “Sure, I miss Margo, and I miss Quinton, and I miss all my friends, but you being here is making all that bearable. You don’t even know all the ways that you’re helping.”

“Your life might have been so much better with him,” Charlton said. 

“Maybe, that’s true,” Suddenly, Eliot’s hand was on his face, his long finger cradling his face, his nails carding through the hair on the base of his neck, his thumb stroking his cheek. Charlton leant into the touch, resting his face in the palm of his hand. “But Quinton is gone. He’s dead. And though it kills me to admit it, he’s never coming back. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him, but eventually, I have to admit that I’ll never see him again. But you’re here now, and we’re working out pretty OK, right? I mean, we’re pretty messed up and I’ve been told many times in my life that I can be high-maintenance and obnoxious, but I love you, and I’m enjoying our time together. While it lasts.”

“I hope it lasts,” Charlton managed. 

Eliot smiled again, and it had been too long since Charlton had seen him smile so many times in one day. “Me too. But that’s just a sure way of saying that it probably will, right? If we both want it?” He tilted his head to the side, appraising Charlton with kind eyes, and his breath ghosted across Charlton’s face. “I haven’t had that much luck with relationships. They’ve all either been evil or arranged or prophesied or manipulative or fake. The only real one I had was with Quinton in a different world, and I fucked that one up royally. I like this one. I want it to last. Maybe have one good thing come out of Fillory,”

“Me too,” Charlton said, smiling now too. While rare Eliot’s good moods were infectious. “I like this. Like us. I… I want us to last for a very long time.”

The smile Eliot gave him was rare, and sweet, and perfect, and Charlton could hardly believe that at one point, a cruel Monster had worn his face. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“So am I,” Charlon said, and he was honestly surprised to actually mean it.

Maybe after all this time of hoping and praying, Charlton’s dreams of a better tomorrow might actually come true.

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea that Eliot lives in a small, humble cottage near the school but far away enough to have some sort of privacy, nestled between the woods but close enough that they can still hear kids in the courtyard, big enough for him yet not too ostentatious, with a bar and a kitchen and a bedroom and a study behind closed doors. Finally a place for himself. It just fills me with joy to imagine Eliot taking care of himself and being loved, even though he's mostly alone.


End file.
